Same material, on video. The article below is the written version.
Okay, you've just about wrapped up an interview for a critical role on your team. You've asked the candidate about their experience, asked all those general technical questions, and even threw in some behavioral questions for good measure. The interviewee has passed with flying colors. You can offer them the job there and then... right? Not so fast. There's one missing piece, a critical piece. Hopefully, you've left time for them to ask you questions, and the kind of questions they ask (or if they bother to ask anything at all) can and should have a huge impact on your decision.
So, what kind of questions am I looking for when I do an interview? While the mere fact that they're asking questions is a good sign, I do give more weight to some. I tend to lump them into three buckets. The first and least significant are questions about pay, benefits, working hours, and the obligatory, "What's the next step?" While there's nothing inherently bad about these questions, they don't really give me much insight on whether the person is going to fit well with the team. The next bucket contains questions about the duties of the job. This might involve questions about what kind of projects they'll be working on or what kind of skills you think are the most valuable. Now, we're getting a little bit deeper. These questions tell you a lot about what a person is interested in and whether you can offer them that. The last bucket revolves around management style, team cohesion, and culture. When someone asks me how I manage teams across multiple time zones or how team members like to communicate, I get excited. This demonstrates that the person really cares about the inner workings of the team and wants to make sure they fit in. That's usually someone looking for a long-term opportunity, a career, and not just a paycheck. And that's really what I'm trying to find. I don't want someone who isn't invested in what we do. It takes a lot of time, money, and effort to get someone up to speed, and I want to make sure they're not going to take off the second they smell a better opportunity.
But here's one other interesting thing I'm looking for, no matter which bucket their questions fit into, one thing that tells me I might have struck gold. Does the person weave in details about my company, anything that indicates they did a little bit of research about the place they want to join? The mere fact that so many candidates don't do the simple step of looking up the company's website before the interview completely baffles me.
Now I'm not saying I won't hire someone who doesn't ask questions and knows nothing about my company. I'm not quite that dogmatic. But I absolutely do take it into consideration, and the rest of the interview has to have gone exceptionally well for me to overlook this fact. I suggest you do the same. Oh, and it should go without saying that you need to make sure you provide enough time for them to ask questions and for you to give them thoughtful responses.